


of mustard-seeds and heart secrets

by Rupzydaisy



Series: the haruspices sing on [4]
Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: A Happier ending, Bittersweet, Canon Compliant, F/M, Parallel Universes, Reconciliation, dust - Freeform, inspiration: that first bit in the title sequence which starts with the big bang, it's softer than you'd imagine, masriel, of sorts, the amber spyglass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-18 12:43:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21710947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rupzydaisy/pseuds/Rupzydaisy
Summary: They were destined to fall throughout their lives, over and over. At the end of it all, at the end of everything, when it’s just him and her falling into the darkness of the abyss, they fall to become the start of something new.(I think a chasm of Dust would have something to say about these two.)
Relationships: Lord Asriel/Marisa Coulter
Series: the haruspices sing on [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1609966
Comments: 8
Kudos: 68





	of mustard-seeds and heart secrets

**Author's Note:**

> it's tagged with major character death, which is technically true, but it's not quite as it seems??

Marisa stretches her arms and throws her whole weight down into the golden abyss after his call. She lands on the pair, angel and human, and the trio hang weightless in the air for a moment, suspended in the golden Dust-fall. Then a lurching feeling spreads through her stomach and becomes never-ending as the three fall continuously into the flowing stream of Dust-laden air. 

The chasm quickly swallows them, enveloping all three in a shower of golden light that drowns out all-natural light and scrubs away the world they’ve left behind. Marisa flinches when her own daemon’s soft fur brushes against her nose and cheeks as he rips out more of the Metatron’s hair. It’s a vicious, useless act but it warms her heart to feel that spark of charged emotion echoed between them as something they both share in these final moments. She can feel Stelmaria's bulk somewhere below, each swing changing and shifting the weight distribution as they careen downwards. The Metatron thrashes and bucks, trying to break free while Asriel has his arms still wrapped tight around the angel's chest. 

“Asriel?” Marisa calls, winded and terrified. The wind steals her words away so she has to shout, “Asriel!” 

“Marisa!” He lets out a wet, surprised laugh that is cut off by a gasp of pain as the Metatron kicks at him. “No! No.” 

With a terrible fear swallowing her heart, Marisa adjusts her grip. She slips down further and wraps her legs tighter around the Metatron's broad chest. Without hesitation, she moves her arms to his throat, wrapping them as tight as she imagines Asriel's grip is around his chest and holds with all her might until her shoulders and elbows ache from being locked in place. Underneath it all, under the centuries of living as the highest power and shrouded by a veil of supposed divinity, Marisa knows exactly what the first angel is, and she knows that he is nothing more than what he always was. 

He is still a man; a man who bleeds and breathes. 

He chokes slowly and she pours all her life's anger and deviousness into her stiffened arms and hands, scrabbling and clawing for purchase against her own skin, for a tighter vice around his neck. She feels righteous they are being used for such a wicked purpose. That for the final time her wickedness is useful, even while she falls to her own death. It is hard work and the cold sweat dripping down her back attests to it, but she knows she doesn't want or need any kind of absolution for it. 

“It's over.” Marisa says to herself more than him when it's finally done. 

Her hand drifts downwards and finds one of Asriel’s, warm and blood slicked. She wraps her fingers around his and tugs gently, but they're locked tight. 

“You can let go, Asriel.” 

He says nothing but they sway precariously as Stelmaria slowly climbs up the dead angel’s body and sinks her forepaws into Asriel’s legs, a solemn promise never to let go. Only then does he let his grip loosen on the Metatron. Marisa’s daemon reaches out for her, small paws slipping over her skin in the most gentle of touches until he's wrapped around her neck, face buried in her hair. 

Together, they let the angel go. The body plummets down into the illuminated void, and they silently wrap themselves around each other for fear of being set adrift. 

.

They keep falling. 

.

Marisa longs for the world she’ll never see again, the one her daughter will grow up in. 

She dreads to think how long they would fall for, knowing that the chasm is supposedly unending. The force of the bomb was like the one Asriel used to puncture the skin of their universe, if not more. An eternity, she supposes far too calmly, and then thought of it terrifies her. 

They hold each other tightly and there’s no distance between them, where she ends and where he begins. Her fingers grip into his torn clothing and she can hear the huffing noises from Stelmaria below mixed in with his strained breathing. It comforts her, as much as it can, when his face brushes hers, even while feeling like the most wretched, damned woman in existence. 

“What do you think will happen to Lyra?” She whispers, close to his cheek, thinking of her daughter and the boy, and their daemons waiting to be reunited

His answer is immediate, and his voice is strong despite his shallow, pained breaths. “I think she’ll find her way. There are others looking to protect her. They’ve been keeping her safe.” 

She thinks the confidence in it might break her, and she thinks of all the things she had never wanted and could now never have, all the things that were too vast for words or too fragile to become dreams. So instead, she hums in agreement and her daemon presses closer to her throat, against the throbbing of her veins leading back to her fluttering heart. 

“She’s like you.” Marisa says finally, confessing the truth about her daughter, and one she had never wanted to admit out of fear and shame, and her own personal terror ever since she had looked at the child’s small face and her dark eyes. “She’ll break the world.” 

Asriel squeezes her clumsily, accidently knocking his temple against hers in a way that makes her teeth rattle. “No, I think she’s more like you. She’s special.” 

“You kept your promise to protect her.” She takes a deep, shuddering breath and when she speaks again her voice is full of pride and fierce with love. “She’s _ours._ ”

.

They keep falling. 

.

In the Dust-illuminated chasm there is no need for secrets. The two of them have a history and they know each other too well. At the end of everything, Marisa finds there is no need for lies, or mistruths, or harsh words. They are all they have until the end of it, and she finds her heart is breaking and wonders if his is too. 

“Did you ever wish things were different?” 

“Hmmm?” 

“You could have convinced me, I think.” Marisa says, not bothering to whisper anymore because there was no one to hear her, and no one to hold it against her. “I could have been persuaded to leave him. I was mad for you. I was madly _in_ love with you. You could have asked me to come with you, and I think might have.” 

“No, you wouldn’t.” He says back and presses a shaky kiss to her wet cheeks and then to her lips that she returns, feeling like her heart has shattered and mended itself all at the same time. 

.

They keep falling. 

.

Hours pass.

Within the Dust-fall, Marisa grows tired. She can feel the stickiness of blood on the back of his neck. His injuries have taken their toll and his grip around her back has slacked. She doesn’t fear that Asriel will let her go, never that-not now, but another, immediate fear has climbed into her heart and pushed aside all other thoughts. 

Because she can feel his heart slow. The adrenaline of the fight and the rush from the initial drop into the chasm has leaked out of his veins, and hers. She knows he is dying, something he cannot fight, and he knows it too. 

“Will we fall forever?” Marisa asks, hoping that he has some madcap answer and was just waiting for the right moment to flaunt it at her. She wouldn’t mind it, not much, if he did. 

“No.” He replies quietly, and there is regret in his voice, maybe shame too. “In my pocket. I have a revolver.”

There is a lump in her throat, and she shuts her eyes. She can’t bear the thought of that sound being the last thing she hears, his breathless body being the last thing she touches, his beautiful daemon turning to golden Dust and joining the rest of the Dust-fall as the last thing she sees. 

But he can feel her nod. 

“I’m not ready yet.” Marisa finally tells him, wanting to make him promise that he won’t leave her, still wanting to somehow find a way out of this. As unfamiliar as despair is to her, she thinks it’s all every single fibre of her body knows now.

“Good. Neither am I.” 

.

They keep falling. 

.

Time stretches on. Or perhaps they left its normal workings when they fell from the edge of the world above. 

“I deserve this. The things I have done-” says Marisa. “He looked in my soul, the first angel of them all, and he saw _everything_. I must have been wrong. I thought I could love her. I thought-”

“He didn’t.” Asriel’s voice is fierce. “Not everything. He saw what he wanted to see. You do love her. You loved her enough to jump. We both did. We did this to protect her. It was the only way.”

He reminds her of all those years ago, when he had made his promises to watch over the child. To protect her even though he could never claim her or love her as his own. Her refusal and his humiliation by the Magisterium had broken him in ways she couldn’t imagine, but it hadn’t erased this. 

“I’ve done things too. Maybe we didn’t deserve this, but we chose it, and we can’t take it back.” 

He falls silent for some time and the silence leaves her nothing but time to root around in her own darkness, grappling with her heart secrets until she has enough courage to face them. It’s slow going, unlike listening into his war council and the brittle snap of understanding that occurred when she realised what true stakes were being fought for. She feels like she’d rather have her fingernails ripped out one by one, but there is no distraction and she is only left with herself. 

She’s not sure if she could have been a different person, her nature was her own. Marisa Coulter née van Zee would have always been a whirlpool of ambition lacking the morality of a good person, except for the presence of Lyra in her life, _but oh_ , she would have _always_ schemed, clawed her way through armies, lied with every fibre of her being all over again, and jumped to her own death if it meant that her daughter could live. 

.

They keep falling. 

.

Marisa's daemon presses himself closer to her. She winces at the scratch of his claws, and the jarring hesitation that follows. It astonishes her that he's still there. It's the longest they've shared a touch since her childhood days. She knows that if he wanted, he could let go for the final time and leave her to live her final moments in agony and wretched pain, things she had caused him to suffer for so long. 

It hurts to be this close; to feel the broken, jagged edges between them, that she had exploited. 

Her daemon is resolutely looking away, keen to avoid a sharp look. She nudges him with her cheek. "It's beautiful. You knew all along, in a way."

Despite her away pushing her daemon, her soul, away, they were never truly separated and while she had believed that her connection and the Dust that surrounded them was something that hindered her, being surrounded by its effervescent light had stunned her back into silence. He looks back at her with a sorrowful complexity in his dark eyes and she tips her cheek to brush against his shoulder and paw. Dust sloughs off and leaves phantom tingles where it falls against her skin. There is so much of it in the air and she knows breath fills her lungs yet all it feels like is light, like standing in the warm sunshine and feeling sunburned. 

She tips her head back to look at the drifting particles flowing forever downwards and feels something she never thought she'd feel across the thin, intangible connection to her daemon; a gentle brush of unconditional forgiveness. 

It stirs a passionate response in a long-neglected corner of her heart, bringing a flood of tears to her eyes, and through it all her daemon holds on to her tight. 

.

They keep falling. 

.

She’s glad that the beating of his heart is still there and that Stelmaria’s soft growls still echo in the vast depths of the chasm, although it is muffled somewhat by the golden hues around them. Marisa keeps her eyes shut and focuses on the sound; the faint thump of his heart pressed close to hers, and tries to ignore how it has grown fainter. If she had an intention craft under her fingertips, she’d want nothing more than to whisk them both away to Lyra. To a safe place, a clean start; somewhere far away under open skies where the world was a kinder place to those who had lived their mistakes and wanted to make amends. 

When she opens her eyes, the thick downfall of Dust swirls gently around her. In the heavy ripples, Marisa imagines she can see shapes and patterns, and enough has enveloped itself around their bodies and their daemons to somehow stick and turn their descent sluggish, like dragging a cloth through water. 

“Marisa, my love, I’m tired.” Asriel mumbles quietly, and her heart lurches with a sorrow she cannot hope to contain. “I-”

“Something’s different. Something’s changed.” 

She shushes him and holds on tighter, even while he sags in her embrace. She had gotten used to the sensation of falling but this was new. It now felt like there was a breeze, or a loosening in the air, like an aeronaut's balloon slipping between windstreams and being slung up higher until it could leave all humanly cares far behind. True freedom existed in the highest reaches of the clouds, on the brink of the stars, but she thinks there’s something here below, in the depths of this chasm too. 

“Can you feel that?”

“Yes.” He is neither composed nor afraid when he cranes his neck around to look, and she recognises a familiar spark of curiosity flares in his eyes. It leaves her thinking she could fool herself into believing he would be fine. 

Marisa blinks and the golden light around them brightens, blurs and then turns sharper. The clarity she had experienced at the very edge of the chasm returns and she feels so alive. For a moment, she thinks she is going mad, hallucinating as her hands around Asriel’s shoulders are illuminated from the Dust. It coats her skin and hair, and she glows from within as the particles drift in between her own. 

She dares not breathe as her monkey dissolves slowly, still clasped around her neck and shoulders, and some of his Dust slips between her atoms and under her skin while others float to merge and melt into the Dust all around her. Asriel's hold on her tightens as Stelmaria dissipates too. Together they watch as the snow leopard goes, the size of her taking longer, until she is nothing but golden in the molten flow around them both.

"I feel her." Asriel gasps in astonishment, marvelling at the wonder. 

When she looks back at him, he's golden too, and it is no longer a mere coating of dust that could be brushed off. He's suffused in it, and she imagines she is too. His reaction soothes her frayed nerves and Marisa nods slowly, feeling a weight in the air around her neck, tugging at her loosened curls. "He's here. He's not gone." 

Marisa tips herself forwards, arms locked tightly around his shoulders and hears the unspoken whispers in the air around her, feeling the weight of the knowledge. She had fallen all her life; as a daughter, a wife, lover, scholar, and mother. 

She falls for the final time.

The Dust, clinging to the vestiges of matter available to it, takes them wholly and they melt into the golden light gracefully. Their atoms drift, encircling each other. They join the rich vastness of Dust itself; Dust that had fallen out of their world, fallen out of known universes and into a blackness so empty it was beyond a void, but a void would have edges and sides and this was an incomparable gulf of nothingness. 

Until it wasn’t. 

All that had fallen into the abyss could have fallen for eons, except Dust adored matter. It sought it out like flowers turning to the sun. As their atoms fell, they were drawn closer until compacted so tightly there was nowhere left to go. 

Then the Dust reached out, throwing itself wide, and a new beginning was called into existence. From nothing into something. While angels would heal rifts and seal off universes, Dust would scatter itself across space uncrossed and fill it up. It would call atoms together, and one day when it had thrown itself wide enough and become heavy enough with reality, the love of it all would piece together new worlds. 

**Author's Note:**

> for more masriel you might want to read 'l'appel du vide' or 'like a shrike to your sharp, and glorious thorn' :)


End file.
